Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Kadamba Sadam

After many days of making cookies and brownies, I couldn't bear to "cream butter, add sugar". I needed something savory to work with. And what better blog to turn to than Suganya at Tasty Palettes. Her recipes are amazing and her photographs are beautiful. And hers is the chosen blog this month at Tried And Tasted, started by Zlamushka and hosted this month by Curry Leaf at Experiments, Emotions, Experiences with Food.

This is a recipe that we enjoyed growing up but I haven't had it in a long time and had no idea how to make it. I was excited when I found it at Suganya's blog and decided to make it for lunch. As she says, its truly comfort in a bowl.

Kadamba is an assortment or string of similar things and sadam means rice. So this is basically a vegetable curry (made with as assortment of mixed vegetables in a spiced tamarind curry, mixed with rice). When we made this at home, I remember the curry cooked with the rice so that they were all mushed together, but I couldn't wait to try Suganya's version.

Dissolve tamarind paste in 1 cup of water. In a deep vessel, boil tamarind water along with salt, turmeric powder, tomato and mixed vegetables for about 15 minutes. The vegetable should be fully cooked and the tamarind shouldn’t smell raw anymore.

Add the cooked dal and spice paste and allow sambar to boil for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Finally add the coconut milk, if using and switch off the flame. Mix well and let the coconut milk to heat through. Stir in asafoetida and cilantro.

In a small skillet, heat oil/ghee and splutter mustard seeds. Remove from flame and add curry leaves. Add this seasoning to the sambar. Serve this sambar with rice and additional ghee, if preferred.

Mix generous ladles of sambar into rice (called saadam in Tamil), mix well and serve warm ‘Kadamba Saadam’ with crunchy cucumber slices, vegetable chips or appalam. The rice should not be dry, but porridge like consistency.

If you want to include onions, slice ‘em thin and sauté with mustard seeds while seasoning and add to the sambar. Omit asafoetida though, as it doesn’t go well with onions or garlic.

This was true comfort food for me and my family. We loved it. Thanks Suganya!

Yummy, Kadamba Saadam. Luv it very much. I used to get it from a temple in my native place a special prasadam. And I used to luv it very much. I could eat the whole prasadam alone, but then there used to be lot of demand for it and atlast I just used to get 1 or 2 spoons. Since then I wanted to prepare it at home. Maybe I think i will try it now.

My husband made the nutella brownies yesterday and they were phenomenal!!! a little gooey on the inside just the way I liked them, and totally moist and chewy, thanks for sharing such this awesome recipe:))You are solely responsible for any extra lbs I've put on after last night!

The rice looks interesting, almost like sambher rice with the fixings or a big pot of khichdi! but I guess the tamarind and coconut milk might make it diffnt! I don't blame you for shifting gears after all that baking..I'd be craving some heat in my food too!

Love the entry and truly sorry I could not respond earlier.I saw it in my dashboard,but could not open it as sometimes I get problems with blogger/mail.Hearty Thanks for the delicious entry and you can send as many recipes as you like.Sorry I could respond earlier to your query regarding it.THANKS

Hi Arundhati, Thanks for the posts. Iam a newbie in this blogworld. Your blog is really interesting. The recipes here are very inviting. Sure will have to try them.Kadamba sadam is one of my favorites.. It looks delicious...I have been thinking to make it for long time and now after seen your recipe iam not waiting anymore to try it...

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